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The Sun Alignment Journey - Abu Simble Temple

Author:Mohamed Eid Bakr

Date: 2017-02-06 14:08:56

Category:pharaonic civilization

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Consistently, the resolution behind all of my trips does revolve mainly around research and exploration. As each nation has its own story, I am quite sure that each corner and crypt of this place carries dozens of stories, I am quite sure that each corner and crypt of this place carries dozens of stories, those types of journeys make me feel so attached to the pharaonic era pushing me to the maximum degrees of eagerness to keep discovering more and more things that I still have no clue about it. Well, at least I am determined enough not to settle until I fully discover what it is all about. My journey started thousand miles far away from this temple, as those miles link the distance between Abu Simble temple and the book I got for my touristic trip to Egypt to the alignment of the sun rays over Ramses II statue.

As soon as I stepped out of my hotel, I started to look for whoever to answer all of those mingling questions in my head. Suddenly, I felt that the place took me years back to the era where Abu Simble temple was constructed, feeling as if I lived back in 1244 B.C in which the ancient temple was constructed under the rule of king Ramiss II. While going around Abu Simble temple, I smelled passion and hard work overwhelming the place which took them almost 21 years to fully construct this masterpiece by 1223 B.C. Through my visit to the temple, one of its guards gratefully took me back in a time machine where it all started while sitting on the bank of the Nile.

He emphasized that as per the ancient Egyptian perceptions, humans move within the first 24 hours after death to the dark underground world, in which they will go through fights with the evils until the God ‘’ Ptah’’ help them to survive these evils depending on their own acts in life ‘’ Ptah’’ could help dead humans to succeed in passing this stage and move to an everlasting world that’s why ‘’Ptah’’ statue does exist here in Abu Simble temple.

Two Lit Days per Year

and the guardians continues to astonish me by all facts he has come to know, for instance he talked to me regarding this astronomical phenomenon that happens in this holy temple where the sculptures are lit two days every year. Asa matter of fact, those lit statues belong to namely three pharoses, the first one was placed on my right-hand side with a body of a man and a head of a hawk representing the God of Sun. while the second one was the statue of king Ramses II and after him comes the third statue of Amun. Ideally, only those three statues that witness this phenomenon while the forth statue which is placed right after them doesn’t witness any light alignment that’s because this forth statue belongs to ‘’Ptah’’ who was the symbol of the after-death world back then representing the dark side of the world in the ancient Egyptian doctrine, as such, lighting this statue world have been inconsistent with his job.

An Astronomical Phenomenon

The temple guard took me to the Nile banks again but this time not to see the temple, instead I looked right and left and didn’t see anything but this child who was jogging and came to ask us where are we going, however, the guard answered before even the child ended his question: ‘’ Abu Simble’’!where exclamation marks continued to appear on my face, he continued saying: 󠅟«many temples were covered with sands and sits years ago, until a kid named ‘’Abu Simble’’ showed that forgotten temple to a swiss orientalist explorer named ‘’GL Gardet’’ and his Italian colleague ‘’Giovanni Bilonzi’’ back in 1817 where all the thanks goes to this little kid who guided them».

The Female Explorer who Path found the World

I try to link the dots of all what the guard has been telling me regarding the idea of sun light alignment over those ancient Egyptian faces, only to find the guard, who took me in a journey around the history, telling me about a female explorer named ‘’Amelia Edward’’ who taught the whole world the idea of sun rays’ alignment on Abu Simble Temple that was discovered back in 1874 to write it down in her book «Thousand Miles above the Nile».

The temple guard continued to enrich me with unmatched details on the history of this phenomenon to tell me that «the sun becomes perpendicular on the statue of Ramses II in Abu Simble temple on February 21st and October 21st every year to match his birthdate and the anniversary of him ascending the throne. However, due to the changes that took place geographically in Egypt after the High Dam being constructed, the dates had changed to be February 22nd and October 21st of each year». As the guard stopped talking for a while, I day dreamt to wake up on the tourist guide inviting me to come and visit this magical place again on February to witness the miracle that was inaugurated by the masterminds of our ancestors Pharaohs.